HER International and the Rotary Clubs of the Okanagan are partnering together to help the poor and women in Nepal, providing uniforms, books, and scholarships. They are also holding a drive for used eyeglasses that will be delivered later this month.
Submitted Image

Okanagan woman has her sights on donating eyeglasses for the needy

Okanagan Rotarian Catherine Goheen is collecting eyeglasses to take to Nepal

Okanagan Rotarian, and Third World sight lady, Catharine Goheen is once again looking for help in supplying the vision needs for the poor in developing nations.

This time around the retired Dr. Specs Optical founder will be delivering donated used reading, sun and distance glasses to the Dang region of Nepal.

The eyeglasses help families in poor regions where they cannot afford, or do not have access to, vision care. For many their eyesight is a necessity to continue working and supporting their families, and allowing their children to get an education instead of working themselves.

The importance of reading glasses in the Third World?

“In all the developing countries that I have dispensed reading glasses to; there have been parents that told me that, because they now could see close, they now could do their job,” said Goheen in a news release. “Their children could return to school.”

Donation of the glasses, which can be dropped off at Dr. Specs in Penticton Plaza near Shoppers Drugs, can be made until Nov. 16 when Goheen will; “pack up the suitcases and am off to Nepal.”

That area of the world was selected following a presentation by president Kevin Edgecombe of the Kelowna-based charity, Her International to the Kelowna Ogopogo Rotary Club. At the meeting he told of the poverty affecting many families, forcing them to contract out their daughters for $50 annually.

There, girls, as young as six years old, work night and day, often fed poorly, treated terribly, don’t see their families for years and too often end up in the sex trade market.

Her International with help from Okanagan and Rotary have saved hundreds of girls from bondage, helped many other girls and mothers get an education and ending, at least in part, the custom of the contracting out of children.